SPS Drives anticipates new smart and digital automation

Great Britain is one of the top-10 visitor nations
Visitors benefit from the wide range of products and services offered by the German and international Who’s Who of the automation industry and gain a unique industry overview. According to the figures for last year’s event, a total of 568 of the 70,264 visitors came from Great Britain. The positive impressions from SPS IPC Drives 2017 have been confirmed time and again:

“I highly recommend SPS IPC Drives to anyone involved in the industrial automation market. There is no better place to get a comprehensive overview of the industry’s emerging products and trends,” explained Matthew Tarney, Product Market Manager, LUTZE.

“Excellent exhibition – a must-visit fair for people in the field of automation and drives. Gives a complete summary of the global scenario and the future trends,” said Sharad Dave, Managing Director, Sahajanand impex and visitor to the 2017 event.

Reflecting digital change
As in the previous year, Industry 4.0 and digital change are topics of focus at SPS IPC Drives 2018. Exhibitors will present not only their solutions, but also various products and example applications for digital transformation. This will be accompanied by topic-related showcases and presentations at the exhibition forums.

The firm commitment that IT companies such as SAP bring to exploring industrial communication topics (such as OPC UA and TSN) shows how the IT and automation industries are increasingly merging.

This process is also reflected in the hall occupation at SPS IPC Drives: in 2018, the topic of software and IT in manufacturing will be on display in Halls 5 and 6. Industrial web services, virtual product development and design, digital business platforms, IT/OT technologies, fog/edge and cloud computing, and many other topics will be covered here. Cyber security is also being addressed by numerous vendors, who will offer vivid demonstrations at their booths of how companies can protect themselves against online attacks.

To tie in with the development of these topics, the exhibition will stage its first hackathon under the banner of ‘digital ideas for smart automation’. The event is intended to enable participants to jointly develop useful and creative software products for the automation industry. The results will be presented, and the award ceremony held on the first day of the exhibition.

After the success in 2017, there will again be Guided Tours on IT-Security in automation, Smart production, and Smart connectivity in 2018. Trade visitors can use these tours to gain targeted and focused information on key innovations and exhibits in these special topic areas.

Joint stands and forums round out the exhibition program
Visitors can also obtain extensive insights into specific topics and ask providers for advice on their particular requirements at the joint booths:

• Automation meets IT, hall 6
• MES goes automation, hall 6
• Wireless in automation, hall 5
• AMA Centre for Sensors and Measurement, Hall 4A

In addition, the forums to be held by the German industry associations VDMA (hall 5) and ZVEI (hall 6) will offer high-quality, topic-specific presentations and podium discussions. There, attendees can learn more about the latest industry subjects and share their thoughts with the experts on hand.

This year’s Automation 4.0 Summit will once again complement the exhibition program on the first two days of the event and address topics from the Industry 4.0 space:

• Edge computing in industry – possibilities and limits
• TSN and OPC UA in industrial environments
• IoT platforms in industry
• Sensors for Industry 4.0

Image credit: Mesago/Thomas Geiger.